


They Say Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

by withpractice_ff



Category: Death Note
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withpractice_ff/pseuds/withpractice_ff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The practicalities of being chained to another human being twenty-four hours a day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Say Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Light knew the second the cuff closed around his wrist that being tethered to L was going to be inconvenient. Annoying. Intrusive. Perhaps, at times, a bit embarrassing. But of course, it's worth it to clear his name, to prove he's not Kira.

Still, he hadn't expected the arrangement to prove painful only a few hours in.

"Ryuzaki," Light says around a yawn, lifting his head up from the desk. "When were you planning on going to bed?"

L looks at Light out of the corner of his eye, bringing a finger to his lips. He says, "You're tired."

"It's three in the morning; of course I'm tired."

L nods, his wide eyes shining in the blue-gray glow of the monitors. He stands abruptly and begins walking out of the room, pulling Light along behind him.

Their room is close to the command center and is neatly outfitted with two side-by-side twin beds with matching spartan nightstands. The beds are just far enough apart that if each man sleeps on his side, facing the other, the chain connecting them can hang slack between them. Light would have been surprised to find it otherwise.

The bed on the right is covered by a particularly downy-looking white comforter, and L flops onto it, pulling the cuff painfully tight against Light's wrist in the process. Light halfheartedly chides, "Careful, Ryuzaki." 

If the dark-haired man hears him, he gives no indication. The bed on the left has a pair of neatly folded pajamas resting on the pillow.

"Can you sit up so I can change into these?" Light asks, giving a little tug on the chain. As L sits up, Light asks, "How am I supposed to change my shirt wearing this thing?" and shakes his wrist for effect.

"I can remove it long enough for you to change, but I'll have to watch you every second you're not wearing the cuff."

Light frowns, but he nods, thrusting his wrist out to L, who gingerly pulls the key out of his pocket. He changes his shirt quickly, then thrusts his wrist back out, flinching when the steel closes around him. He says, "Turn around while I change my pants."

L obliges, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet. When he starts whistling, Light knows he's being made fun of, just a little.

"Okay, I'm done." When L turns back around, Light adds, "Aren't you going to change?"

"Nope," he replies, and flops back onto his bed.

"Where's the light switch?" Light asks, looking around the room and coming up empty.

"There isn't one."

Of course there isn't.

Biting back a complaint, Light settles gently into bed, slipping between the sheets. He's convinced he's not going to be able to sleep between the bright florescent lights, the unfamiliar, uncomfortable weight of the cuff at his wrist, and the feel of L's eyes on him from across the room. But he's out just as soon as he closes his eyes.

  


* * *

  


Light wakes with no sense of what time it is. He opens his eyes reluctantly and sees L sitting up in his bed, scribbling in a notebook.

"What time is it?" he asks, sitting up. He moves to rub the sleep out of his eyes and meets resistance from the chain; he'd forgotten it was there.

"Just before eight," L answers, his attention diverted back to his notebook.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Enough."

His mouth tastes ashy and dry from the lack of sleep. He says, "I want to brush my teeth."

L flips his notebook shut and pops it in the drawer of his nightstand. Without a word, he starts off toward the door in the back corner of the room. In his exhaustion last night, Light hadn't noticed the en suite bathroom.

The bathroom, like the bedroom, is sparse and undecorated. There are two wrapped toothbrushes sitting on the edge of the sink, along with a fresh tube of toothpaste. The shower, to Light's dismay, is encased in glass. To his relief, it can clearly only fit one; he'd had a nightmare vision of the two of them standing soaked beneath the shower head, L disinterestedly watching him soap up his chest.

L unwraps one of the brushes and hands it to Light before opening the other for himself. He squeezes toothpaste onto both sets of bristles, then shoves his own brush into his mouth, scrubbing vigorously. Light watches him for a second--it's almost strange, watching L do something so normal, so routine--before chasing away his own morning breath.

They bend to spit at the same time and end up having to take turns. For all his obvious planning, Light is surprised L didn't think to install a double vanity.

L's about to head back into the bedroom when Light says, more than a little uncomfortable, "I have to pee. And I'd like to shower."

L frowns. "Already?"

"I haven't used the bathroom since you cuffed me," Light says, feeling weirdly defensive. "And it's first thing in the morning."

L shrugs and leans against the wall of the bathroom. Light watches L watching him, then realizes that there is enough slack on the chain for him to reach the toilet.

"You're kidding me."

L shrugs again. He doesn't move.

"Are you going to watch me shower, too?"

L says nothing.

"What, do you think Kira kills with soap?"

L smirks ever so briefly. "The odds of that are a fraction of a percent--infinitesimal. But I can't rule out any possibilities."

Light stands uncomfortably in the center of the room, unsure of what to do. Is he really supposed to take a piss with someone standing over him? What's going to happen when he has to take a shit? This is ridiculous.

L laughs and turns around, stepping just outside of the bathroom. If he holds arm out to his side, Light can just reach the toilet.

"Ass."

  


* * *

  


"What about you?" Light asks, toweling his wet hair.

Showering had been another adventure in indignity; the chain between them too short for L to wait outside of the room, needing to loop over the top of the stall as it did, L had to stand with his back against the glass, arm held over his head to give Light clearance to wash below his waist.

He's not looking forward to having to repeat the process from the other side of the stall, but fair's fair, right?

L shakes his head. He combs his fingers through his hair a few times for effect. Once Light has pulled on some clean clothes, he starts out of the room.

"You're not even going to change?" Light asks, wrinkling his nose a little.

"Later."

  


* * *

  


Although he's quite used to waking up early, he's also used to getting a full night of sleep. So just after midnight, Light asks, "Don't you ever get tired?"

"Not anymore," L replies enigmatically, his eyes glued to the screen in front of him.

"Well, I do. I'm used to getting six to eight hours of sleep."

"That's going to be problematic."

"Is that so?" Light asks, crossing his arms in irritation.

L swivels in his chair to look at the other man. "Most people spend one-third of their lives asleep."

"Okay..."

"That's inefficient."

Light frowns, sensing he's being pulled into a debate. He says, "I'm inefficient when I'm tired; better to work at my best than slog through at my worst."

L tsks, then turns back to the monitors. "You get used to it."

  


* * *

  


Light wakes with a start, surprised to see L perched at the end of his bed, staring at him.

"What are you doing?" he asks, throwing an arm over his eyes.

"I've never had the opportunity to watch someone sleep before," L says, bringing his thumb to his lips. "I wonder if I look like that when I sleep."

"Like what?"

"Dead," L answers, then jumps to the floor.

  


* * *

  


Misa, naturally, is unhappy to go on dates with Light in her own apartment, with L sitting on the couch beside them. Light generally spends the bulk of the date chatting with L, finding the other man’s presence an unexpected relief. 

Misa's unhappy about that, too.

  


* * *

  


"Sometimes you have an erection in the morning," L notes from his spot at the end of Light's bed. Light yawns, pulling himself from slumber. "Like right now, for example."

"Very astute of you to notice," Light grumbles, pushing his sheets away. In his irritation, they fly a bit high and hit L in the face. The dark-haired man is unfazed.

"I get them, too. Sometimes."

"So does everyone. There's even a name for it, they call it--"

"Yes," L interrupts, waving his hand in dismissal. "I'm familiar with the workings of the human body."

"And yet here we are, talking about my erection."

"What I'm wondering about," L continues, fingers at his mouth, "is how you make it disappear so fast."

"What are you talking about?" Light asks as they make their way to the bathroom.

"One minute, you have an erection. Then I spit toothpaste into the sink and you don't."

Light laughs. "And you think maybe there's a correlation?"

"Do you dislike spitting?"

"I have no problem with spitting in and of itself, no," Light says, then after a pause adds, "You do realize that morning erections have nothing to do with sexual desire, generally speaking."

"They don't go away until I pee, usually," L says, his brow furrowed.

"Here, let me teach you a trick," Light says, and then reaches into his underwear and tucks his erection under the waistband, the head covered by his nightshirt. "Ta da."

"What did you do?" L asks, squinting in the vicinity of Light's crotch.

"I just tucked it under my waistband."

"That sounds uncomfortable."

"Not particularly," Light says with a shrug. "Just enough so that it goes away without a trip to the toilet."

L removes his fingers from his lips to say, "Interesting. I'll keep that in mind."

  


* * *

  


"I want to sleep on my other side," Light announces, feeling an ugly anger building in the pit of his stomach, sudden and overwhelming.

"So sleep on your other side," L replies, not looking up from his laptop.

"To lay on my other side, I'd have to have my arm wrapped around my body." He rolls, his arm pulled across his chest by the chain connecting them, to demonstrate.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Light mimics, his imitation unkind.

"Now you are on your other side."

"Can you take this thing off me?" Light asks, exasperated, sitting up abruptly and shaking his wrist in L's face. "I want to sleep, and I want to sleep without this goddamn thing for one night. Just one."

L frowns, resting a thumb against his lips. "I can't do that."

"Why not? Aren't you going to stare at me while I sleep, anyway?"

"Not the entire time," L says, as though this were completely reasonable. "I'll have to sleep too, at some point."

Light feels a growing, irrational desire to punch the other man in the face. He says, "Then what do you propose?"

"We can switch beds," L says, already standing.

A reasonable solution, given the circumstances. Light doesn't like it.

"So we're going to have to switch beds every time I want to roll over?"

L stands in the narrow space between their beds, and Light thinks he sees a hint of exasperation in his eyes. "Keeping in mind that I can't uncuff you, what do you suggest we do, then?"

"Push the beds together," Light says impulsively.

"Push the beds together," L repeats, his voice flat.

"So there's more slack on the chain."

L looks from one bed to the other and shrugs. "Fine."

With the beds together, there's just over a foot of space between them. Even with his back to the other man, Light can feel L's eyes on him.

"Stop staring."

"I'm not."

Light rolls over. L's looking at him with his wide, curious eyes. Light gives him an accusing look and L says, "I lied."

  


* * *

  


In the morning, L says, "I've noticed that this arrangement is starting to wear on you."

Light glares at the other man over his bowl of cereal.

“You think?"


End file.
